fever dream
by conv. hearts
Summary: Itachi Uchiha and Deidara, from the very beginning to long after the end. - diverges from canon pre-Sasuke/Deidara fight. /ItaDei./


**..fever dream..**

**itachi uchiha x deidara**

**1sentence.**

**_note: I am sick of being reported for a "list entry." 50 sentence format IS ALLOWED ON . It's not a list of crappy pick-up lines, it's not a "never hear them say" - it's a genuine story, made up of sentences, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Please stop reporting me; it's only wasting your time and mine. c:_**

**40 - Solitary**

Itachi's left everything in a fire - in the fire _country - _and now, he's not quite sure what he's going to do; only that it will no longer involve attachments he can't afford.

**31 - Smirk**

They see the kid for the first time, when enough years have passed that Itachi isn't really Akatsuki's kid anymore, and the first thing Itachi sees is a mad smirk and wild eyes, and they're settled onto a body that could almost be a girl's.

**47 - Valiant**

The kid puts up an attempt at effort, but it's not enough, and Itachi only takes two breaths before the little blonde almost accidentally kills himself - and then immediately launches into a tirade that Itachi only half-listens to.

**01 - Walking**

When they all begin to walk back to base, after Deidara's first loss against Itachi, it only takes ten minutes for the blonde to begin frantic, half-audible plans and for Itachi to think that this kid might someday serve to be a match for even him - or, at the very least, a diversion.

**21 - Quiet**

There is _never _another quiet day for the Akatsuki, not after they drag Deidara back and tell him he's a member for life.

**08 - Whiskey and Rum**

Maybe the reason they really bonded wasn't because opposites attracted or anything else quite so proverbial; after all, even the worst villains have their scruples, and the two youngest members of Akatsuki were often the ones stuck sober while everyone else was drowning in the product of someone's latest mission payment.

**50 - Defeat**

Itachi Uchiha had never faced a true defeat - that is, until Deidara no Iwagakure managed to squirm underneath his skin, stick like an ANBU tattoo, and systematically destroy Itachi's hopes of leaving behind all human attachments.

**17 - Belief**

Itachi spent a long time crafting a world full of things he can prove, and tossing out the things he could never possibly hold in his hands; unfortunately, Deidara's world is made up of errant hopes and fever dreams, and Deidara's world has already started to wage a war against Itachi's - a war that it's winning.

**04 - Wonder**

Every time Itachi tries to tell Deidara that he should exercise more caution, that it's a miracle he's not _dead _by now, Deidara just cocks an eyebrow in that infuriating little way and asks quite loudly if the great Itachi Uchiha is _concerned._

**05 - Worry**

The great Itachi Uchiha is _never _concerned, at least not outwardly, so after the loss of both his arms, it's Itachi's turn to cock an eyebrow and lean against the doorway while a moping Deidara gets his appendages sewn back on.

**37 - Soliloquy**

Itachi quickly comes to the conclusion that Deidara's vocal cords are connected to his lungs - one _cannot _work while the other is not doing the same - and never stops claiming that the first time he kissed Deidara was in an attempt to suffocate the kid.

**35 - Sarcasm**

"No, Deidara, I really do enjoy it when you _surprise attack _me."

**18 - Balloon**

Deidara is entranced by the entire show as they watch the clone swell into it's explosive potential, but Itachi keeps his eyes fixed on the thing's face, even as it twists into a horrible mockery of the real, beautiful man.

**36 - Sordid**

All Itachi can think the first time is _wrong, wrong, mistake, _but of course he won't say it out loud, and anyway, there's something about the way Deidara uses his hands that's _right, right, (mistake)._

**15 - Breathing**

If there's one thing Itachi had forgotten after years of hotel rooms separate from anyone else, it's that the sound of breathing beside you can be either insomnia-inducing or comforting; thankfully, Deidara's is the latter on most nights.

**12 - Blessing**

"Why, thank you, Hidan. I hadn't realized we _needed _your approval."

**45 - Natural**

Itachi _may _have had the slightest of ulterior motives when he goaded Deidara about whether or not he'd been born with those blonde locks; but honestly, Itachi had never seen someone born outside of Konoha with blue eyes and silky, golden hair like that.

**06 - Whimsy**

Art is _not_ something they have in common, but Itachi maintains that if Deidara made _realistic _sculptures, they wouldn't have so many arguments over cases of mistaken sculpture identity.

**27 - Jester**

"Sometimes I feel like you're no more than a jester -" Itachi begins to say one day, only to be cut off by a torrent of words about how _yeah, maybe, you're the queen of hearts and I'm the jester - see, because - _and it's just easier to let it go than try to tell Deidara that there's no jester in a deck of cards.

**39 - Share**

Sometimes, after difficult missions, when all four of them - Itachi, Kisame, Tobi, Deidara - are curled in a ring around dying embers, Itachi can feel bright pairs of eyes fixed on him, and he knows that before long, his carefully chosen sleeping area is going to be invaded.

**13 - Bias**

Itachi had always been raised to believe that Iwa nin were cold, heartless bastards; it must be more proof of his parent's failure to bring Itachi up properly that Deidara is, at the very least, _warm._

**41 - Nowhere**

They're in the middle of _nowhere, _and Itachi has just started to understand why Sasori dubbed Deidara the "brat," when out of nowhere Deidara's lips crash against his own - the blonde states afterward that "_this is the best kind of place for shirking responsibilities, yeah."_

**22 - Quirks**

Itachi wants very badly to ask Deidara why he speaks so strangely, but he's afraid that if he does, Deidara might pry into some of his own idiosyncrasies (at least, moreso than he already does) - and those aren't things Itachi's really ready to discuss with anyone.

**11 - Birthday**

The night after Kisame's impromptu and unwanted June celebration, Itachi expects a joke when he asks Deidara when his birthday is - and feels terrible when all he gets is a brisk "_I don't have one."_

**14 - Burning**

The destruction is _always _left to Deidara; Itachi could, theoretically, destroy a village with the proper application of his fire jutsus, but for some reason, using them prompts a sensation of crawling all over his skin that refuses to go away for days.

**48 - Virtuous**

If Deidara is the most virtuous of them all - and sometimes, Itachi thinks he might be - then it only serves to prove that Akatsuki is a hotbed of the criminally insane.

**10 - Weddings**

Itachi has always hated weddings (_especially when he'd been thirteen and known that the bride and groom had days, just days, to live out their bliss), _so it's a damn good thing that Deidara's stability can't quite handle anything resembling a family dynamic.

**02 - Waltz**

There are some things you don't tell Deidara, Itachi reflects after approximately 46 hours of near-constant laughter from the other man, and one of them is that your parents forced you to learn ballroom dance.

**23 - Question**

When Deidara hesitantly asks "_what was your mother like," _there's something wrong with his tone that actually makes Itachi close his eyes, sigh softly, and tell him about the family member he begged for, but still couldn't save from the council's quell.

**29 - Jewel**

Deidara likes to say that Itachi's eyes shine like rubies, but Itachi would prefer that his Mangekyou be thought of as something a little more _useful._

**24 - Quarrel**

A day hasn't gone by when the two of them don't argue, but Itachi can't deny that he enjoys the apology stage.

**07 - Waste/Wasteland**

"We're all stuck in one big wasteland," Deidara mumbles one night when he's feeling particularly moody, fingers covered with white clay and a scorpion barely taking shape in his hands, while Itachi looks on with only the most mild of interest; this isn't the first time Deidara's expressed discontent at their lot in life, and as long as they're both members of Akatsuki, it won't be the last.

**03 - Wishes**

"I wonder what you'd wish," Deidara murmurs one night when a dying star arcs through the sky above them, and Itachi isn't sure whether he's glad or upset when Deidara never really _asks._

**19 - Balcony**

"I wish we had a balcony," comes the - predictable - grumble from the motel room's window, while Itachi's trying to unpack the necessary weapons for their mission, and Deidara is pointedly not helping him, "Because, y'know, it's the most useful of the romantic clichés, yeah."

**20 - Bane**

Kisame notes one day with a laugh that Deidara's really turning out to be the bane of Itachi's existence; Itachi doesn't comprehend at the time that a bane isn't just a cause of misery, it's also a poison.

**43 - Nuance**

"I know you too well, yeah," Deidara tells him with a grin, arms tossed around his neck in what's either an attempt at hug or another attempt at murder, "And I know that you still don't get me."

**34 - Serenade**

"You don't really care for music," Deidara says quietly one night - like he's reminding himself - hand settled onto Itachi's knee, eyes studying the older nin's face just a little too closely, "I wish I knew what you did care for."

**26 - Jump**

There are ANBU at their heels, a cliff at their fronts, and Deidara must be rubbing off on him, because Itachi seizes the blonde's hand and _flies._

**33 - Stupidity**

And even though they'll never be able to return to that particular village, Deidara's laughter and an odd twinge of pleasure deep within his stomach lets Itachi know that it was all worth it.

**38 - Sojourn**

Something between the two of them is turning down a darker road than usual - and that honest-to-god scares Itachi, because they were already murderers and thieves, and Deidara might be the only rock Itachi has left to hang on to.

**25 - Quitting**

"I'm _leaving, _yeah," he hisses through his teeth with a vengeance that isn't uncommon, even though it rakes across the nerves differently this time, while his cloak continues to crumple under his feet and he tosses his ring into the mud into the mud, "and I'd rather _die _than lose my freedom to you again."

**32 - Sorrow**

Itachi is certain he's been overusing his Mangekyou when he realizes that Deidara's _gone, _and he actually begins to feel an itch behind his corneas - after all, Uchihas and S-ranked criminals don't _cry, _and itching must be a symptom of the coming blindness.

**42 - Neutral**

For a long time, Itachi Uchiha hasn't known exactly what side he was on, but the time has come for him to make a final pick between Akatsuki and his childhood home - and Konoha is no longer as spotless as he'd once dreamed it to be, anyway.

**44 - Near**

Things are changing for the worse, and the Akatsuki are always near each other now - that is, all of them except their explosion expert; Hidan's bet is that he's already dead.

**30 - Just**

Life is never _fair, _Itachi has come to realize, but he's sick of siding with the ones who pretend, with their leering animal masks and their planned executions instead of the ones who meet it almost honestly, with their ironic white wings and fly-by-night assassinations.

**09 - War**

There's blood in Deidara's hair, standing out bright against the blonde strands, and Itachi knows in an _instant _that recruiting the unwilling was a mistake, but there isn't time to try and patch up what may never have been whole - not when Iwa is moving in from one side, and Konoha from the other, and there's no telling who's on what side anymore.

**28 - Jousting**

Quick turn - he kicks - Itachi dodges, tries to grab the foot - explosion - _opening - _Mangekyou - stupid mechanical eye - _fire, fire, _and that mechanical eye explodes in a sea of sparks, leaving nothing but a bloody hole underneath.

**49 - Victory**

It's not the first time Itachi's stood over the body of someone he once loved, while blood pooled around hands he'd always thought would be there to pull him up from the increasing darkness, but it is the first time he hasn't been able to pretend that it was a victory.

**16 - Breaking**

Years and years later, Itachi comes across another blue-eyed blonde, bangs parted _just so, _and although the rest of her team is killed _viciously, _he chalks it up to divine intervention that the girl walks away from their fight missing only an arm.

**46 - Horizon**

Deidara's wish, on that night long ago, might have been for the horizon and a sky that stretched on forever, or it might have been for something as simple as release from Akatsuki's chains; whatever it was, it was something that Deidara had known how to catch, to control, to make worthwhile - but Itachi is just beginning to realize that his own wish would have come too late to make any difference in the way the world (_or Deidara, or Itachi himself)_ ended.


End file.
